the night i went on breastfeeding strike
i am breastfeeding, which is something I decided to do for many reasons. actually, just for two: it's best for the baby and it helps you lose the baby weight.
sn: it doesn't even feel right calling it "baby weight." it should really be "cookie weight" or "au bon pain weight" or "kraft macaroni and cheese weight"—i had a major case of the blue box blues when i was preggo and hadn't eaten that stuff since i was like, 7. i just was eating. i don't half eat now. i am subsisting off of handfuls of carrot sticks, granola bars and pirates booty. help, help me please.
i can't say that i knew what to expect from breastfeeding. i didn't expect it to be fun. i didn't expect horrible. it's neither of those things, though it does skew closer to the latter more often than the former.
alas, it is important work and i would encourage all moms to give it a serious try if they are able (legit info on that here). and i'm saying that not as a mom, but as a child of a mom who breastfed and reaped the benefits. i don't think i'll be able to do it as long as my mom did, meaning i won't be curling up into #MiniMilah's lunchbox next to her string cheese and whatever the kids are eating these days, idk, gluten-free paste. but i'm in it for a year.
however...the flesh is weak. especially the sore, knawed-on flesh that mommy forget to put lanolin on because OMG baby and why would i have time to take care of myself? so one night at 3 am, i looked over at that free can of formula i got in the mail. staring down at me from the top of the fridge promising relief. and i lost my religion. i grabbed one of the many fancy, epa-free, ergonomic bottles we were gifted and i mixed up some of that crap.
nervously, i presented the bottle to #MiniMilah—half-afraid she wouldn't like it, half-afraid she'd like it more than my milk. so many emotions. i put the bottle in her mouth and tilted it and...she opened her lips and just let the milk run down her face.
she wouldn't taste it. she wouldn't clasp her lips around the bottle. she didn't even try. instead, she stared at me blankly, as if to say "you done bumped your MFing head. put the titty in my mouth now or else."
i sobbed quietly and did was i was asked.
